Lancaster (Pa.), May 7^th, 1865.

 

            My dear, respected friend!

 

When you shall have done reading this letter, you will, I trust, feel disposed to excuse me for my having procrastinated answering your two letters (dated 30^th of January and 8^th of March) for so long a period of time. Your former letter (from the 30^th of January) I would have answered immediately, had it not been for your mentioning, in the same, that your dear father, too, would write to me before long; so I thought I would wait yet a little while, and then answer both letters together. In the latter respect (that of receiving a letter from your dear father) I have, as yet, been disappointed. But the main cause that has prevented me from replying to your letters sooner, is, that I have been, for a longer period of time, and am still, even at the present time, a great invalid. For I must inform you, that it is just now about two years, that since I am visited with a sore affliction—the salt-rheum in my right foot, and for the last five or six weeks it was worse than ever, so that, som at times, I was hardly able to walk. This was the reason that I could not attend personally to the business you had given me in charged me with, but had to request a friend, Mr. Ranninger, bookbinder, a man of a good education and a cultivated mind, a German / by birth, but a resident of this place, perhaps for some thirty years, to transact the business in my and your behalf. He told me that he had spoken to all the druggists and other merchants in town, but that he had not succeeded in making out a place for you. I am sorry, in deed, that we could not succeed in procuring a suitable situation for you in this place, for I would have been very glad to see you here and enjoy your company and conversation. If, however, as you say, you intend visiting a high school, you would find some fine opportunities here, for that purpose. There is Franklin and Marshal College, near the city, especially for young theologians. In Millersville, three or four miles from this place, there is situated the first Normal School of the State of Pennsylvania, for the education and instruction of teachers, male as well as female. In Litiz, eight miles distant, there is a celebrated Seminary for young ladies.

 

            You write about the death of uncle Jacob Gorman. I cannot imagine that it is the same person I have known under this name, as the uncle of our lamented friend Gervis Young. He lived a mile or two from Freeburg (Straubstown); I was his guest for a day or two, in company with my deceased friend Lewis Young. But if it was another person, I cannot recollect now.

 

            Hoping that the above statement will be sufficient to excuse me for the long delay, I now prepare to say a few words in reply to your former letter, and in the first place / I offer you my warmest and sincer most sincere acknowledgements for the transmission of your photograph, and the promise of further sending another copy of the same, for "that smart intelligent looking little girl of yours", as you please to call her. Now, she would be proud, indeed, if you should be inclined to keep your promise, and, in some measure, you have called her by the right name, for my daughter Wilhelmina, I may say, is really a smart and intelligent girl, for her age. She will be eight years next July and she reads and writes perfectly well English as well as German, even illegibly written letters in both languages—and, what is most astonishing, as soon as she knew the alphabet, she did read, without spelling, and almost without hesitating, the most complicated sentences, in such a manner, as I have never before heard or seen in a child of her age. Well may I call her "the pride of my life, and a solace and consolation in my old age". But, enough of that. I am also under great obligations to you, for the transmission of the sketch of that banner, with the likeness of Abraham Lincoln, that noble patriot and immortal martyr of liberty, more particularly so, now that he is dead, and I hope that, in process of time, it may become a tie that will unite our hearts stronger and more fervently in the bonds of mutual friendship and union.—But what do you say in regard to that horrid transaction in the city of Washington, that horrible tragedy—the assassination of the President of the United States?!?

 

"O horrible! o horrible!!—most horrible!!!" /

 

            "By their fruits ye shall know them", says our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Abolitionist and Emancipator of mankind (for I glory in the name, to be called an abolitionist, and I deem it not to be a shame, (as the slave-drivers and copperheads do), but rather the highest honor for a man, to be an abolitionist.)—Now, you see, that is the infernal, diabolical work of the infernal slave-drivers and the still more infernal copperheads! I will say no more of this subject, or else I might find no end to the beginning.

 

            Why truly, my dear young friend, God has, it would appear from the style of your letters, blessed you with rare gifts and fine talents, and I hope you will become yet an eminent divine, or distinguished lawyer, or you may even immortalize your name as a renowned poet!— We Far from aspiring to immortality, I have lately tried my strength in a poetical essay, entitled: "Niagara". The first thought was originated within my brains through the instrumentality of a recent correspondence of a poor blind girl, a niece of mine, by the name of Rosalie Kretschmar. How far I may, or may not, have succeeded in performing my dificult task, I leave to the judgment of a competent judge.

 

            But now I must leave off writing, requesting you to present my best respects to your dear parents and brothers, and to excuse my bad scribbling, partially caused by my sore foot. I remain always,

 

                                                Your sincere friend, Charles Kretschmar.

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